The casting couch

[reader]

From NY Times

 

 

For a fashion model, success is the ability to incite desire. The job requirements often include nudity and feigning seduction; provocation is a lever for sales. In the industry, boundaries between the acceptable and the unacceptable treatment of models have been etched in shades of gray.

 

This has allowed prominent photographers to cross the line with impunity for decades, sexually exploiting models and assistants. The experience, once seen as the price models had to pay for their careers, is now being called something else: abuse of power and sexual harassment.

 

Fifteen current and former male models who worked with Bruce Weber, whose racy advertisements for companies like Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch helped turn him into one of the foremost commercial and fine art photographers, have described to The New York Times a pattern of what they said was unnecessary nudity and coercive sexual behavior, often during photo shoots.

 

The men recalled, with remarkable consistency, private sessions with Mr. Weber in which he asked them to undress and led them through breathing and “energy” exercises. Models were asked to breathe and to touch both themselves and Mr. Weber, moving their hands wherever they felt their “energy.” Often, Mr. Weber guided their hands with his own.

 

“I remember him putting his fingers in my mouth, and him grabbing my privates,” said the model Robyn Sinclair. “We never had sex or anything, but a lot of things happened. A lot of touching. A lot of molestation.”

 

In accounts going back to the mid-1990s, 13 male assistants and models who have worked with the photographer Mario Testino, a favorite of the English royal family and Vogue, told The Times that he subjected them to sexual advances that in some cases included groping and masturbation.

 

Representatives for both photographers said they were dismayed and surprised by the allegations.

 

“I’m completely shocked and saddened by the outrageous claims being made against me, which I absolutely deny,” Mr. Weber said in a statement from his lawyer.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/mario-testino-bruce-weber-harassment.html

[Vessey]

Bloody hell they are all getting in on the act now; everybody digging up the past.

 

Just wait until they get on to 'bosses and secretaries' and 'dirty weekends' there won't be enough lawyers to go round!

[ggobkk]

Reader - you are quick...this only appeared on line a scant few minutes ago...it won't be in the printed version for another six hours.  In addition to male models, BW also featured golden retrievers in many photoshoots.  Probably a good thing Herb RItts has passed away.